Poe's Law states :
Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing.
Poe's Law is the basis for the increasing need for the qualifier: "Not the Onion."
Iterations of Poe's Law have become more prevalent on the Internet than Godwin's Law. Very recent examples include:
"We should build a number of coffins outside each Democratic office" (Sen. Mark Kirk.)
"The Spanish Inquisition has been misunderstood." (Jonah Goldberg)
Zandar at Balloon Juice found today's example of Poe's Law in a USA Today Column by Glenn Reynolds, in which the gun loving, Arianna-BFF "Instapundit" takes the current Rudy-inspired game of questioning the President's patriotism to a new level by asking
So when the five-day wonder of questioning Barack Obama’s patriotism is over, perhaps we should address another question: How patriotic is the electorate? And how long can we survive as a nation if the answer is “not very”? And we should proceed from there.
"Proceeding from there" means disenfranchising those deemed insufficiently patriotic from the voter rollls.
Even more Poe-inspired is Reynold's inspiration for this -- the fascist society in Starship Troopers. in which you had to make a "sacrifice" to gain the vote, e.g., be a combat veteran or participate in dangerous experiments.
Zandar finds no snark or sarcasm, suggesting that Reynolds is probably serious on this subject. This is not on Reynold's prolific blog, but in USA Today (perennial winner of the award for "Best Investigative Paragraph,") so Congrats to them. People in Marriotts all over this country reached outside their doors, opened that paper and said What? He said "What?"